Smoke House Deli all the Way!

It’s smoking hot when I put a step inside, onto the labyrinth of the swanky restaurant. Smoking hot, not in a literal context, but in a metaphorical connotation; Smoking hot, not because of the heat or the dust, but because of the quirky ambience that exudes a charm of another magnitude, and Smoking hot, because it’s nothing but Smoke House Deli.

An unusual combination of beige and white interiors tells that it’s not any next door cafe. A wide assortment of flavours fills the air with an aura that is good enough to bring the dead to his feet! Smoked food, burgers, pizzas, pastas and salads rustle your taste buds like nothing else does. Shovel down a few refreshing drinks, a variety avalanche of coffee and tea, and you feel sorted for the day. Add the chirpy music to your taste, and you will never feel like leaving the comfort of the seat. 

Smoke House Deli is noted for its tongue ravaging smoked food in Mumbai. From quick hearty bites to an elaborate, royal eating experience, SHD serves every mood. Eggs Benedict for breakfast offers a grand experience which otherwise is missing from typically boring breakfasts. Smoked lam burger and tenderloin steak clothed in mustard sauce make for an irresistible affair. Peri Peri Smoked chicken with potatoes is one of the most cherished specialities of Smoke House Deli, and is offered with every ounce of delicacy and charm. Heart crusted lamb chops with mango chutney is a delicacy to die for! Once in SHD, you will be a nut to miss it. The burgers are juicy, better than any effing burger in Delhi too!

The menu is heatedly appetizing and the ambience a pure delight. An equally terrific choice for casual lunch as much as it is for formal meetings; Smoke House Deli ruffles the taste buds and leaves a long lasting imprint.

And that’s How we Got the Burger

There is a warm reverence in the way we talk about food history. The jewels of local fare that have run in the family for ages have become a part of the culture. We can trace the traditional back to the Mughal era and many even older. But ever fathomed the burger store next door is serving a legacy from the past or just a creation spotted a couple of decades ago?

Yes it’s an American dish, but burgers in Delhi are equally adored by the locals. Actually the origin of this favourite fast food is drowned in controversies and contrasting folklores. I will not touch the debate on who made it first. But the common facts floating around are quite intriguing.
 

It can be traced back to the medieval times when in Central Asia, people used to put beef under their saddles to make it tender and then it was eaten raw. However the modern burger did not come into existence before 1895. A theory says, it was served at a restaurant in response to an impatient customer’s quick lunch order. But whoever was the inventor would be proud to see burgers in Delhi have come this far.
 

And it was transformed into a commercial success after 1921 with White Castle launching the hamburger we fondly refer to. However, with quick popularity and insane demand, sloppiness in the cooking methods crept in. then in 1934, a store, Wimpy Burgers, inspired from famous cartoon series Popeye the sailor man took its popularity to a new level. Later of course, came the McDonalds’ which is how we recognize burger.
 

However, today this snack is not dependent on a single brand for its recognition. It is far more localized and has become a public property across the world. Some restaurants in Vasasnt Kunj nearly beat the set brands in taste.
 

Burgers share the spirit of America: all embracing and free. So chefs have taken to invent there variations. And honestly, nobody really wants to tie it down to a stereotype. So go ahead, choose your own variant or rather invent your own, and who knows you could be the maker of the next burger buzz.   
          

Cost Effective Homemade Cocktails

The usual night outs usually consist of expensive dinner with friends and a spree to the club which are generally tight on your budget. However when you chose to stay at home instead of hopping beyond the finances you have planned you can still enjoy a great time drinking with your friends. However when you watch professional bartenders with countless ingredients you haven’t even heard about you get a feeling that you need a knowledge of some sort of chemistry to come up with those when you are staying back at home. But my experience says the best night outs and parties are those well managed at home with the best cocktails.

What you need to know these mouth and spirits savoring cocktails require nothing more than the basic skills of being able to measure the ounces and squeeze lemon. It may sound too unbelievable to start with but the honesty in this statement is as much as the sun rising from the east and the setting best remains unsaid. So it is just with the few essentials, a little planning and with lots of variations and your taste you can come with the best cocktails in Delhi anytime and anywhere.

Here are some of the cocktails you can enjoy relaxing or partying at home:
 

-Cape Coder
Preparing it as simple as spelling it right. Vodka and cranberry juice is a great drink for all occasions. You can easily get hold of a cranberry bottle from any shop nearby add to it the vodka of your choice. You can pick the vodka bottle as per your budget and don’t wait more, turn the music on.

-Margarita and Daiquiri
Both of these are the most cost effective drinks you can pick from the range of all the best cocktails you have known so far. What you need is seasonal fresh fruits and a liqueur of your choice and there you go. Shake them or blend these into all the possible flavors you can imagine.

-Gin Rickey
As pretty as it sounds it will be a sure hit in your party. All you need to do is buy soda siphon and few CO2 cartridges. Don’t let the party and mood end experiment with the myriad of cocktails you can then come up with. SmokeHouseDeli.

Quick and Easy Egg Recipes

Eggs are globally regarded as the staple food for breakfast from times long and of course for all the good reasons. Eggs are a rich source of vital nutrients essential for a healthy diet. However a single egg contains 80 calories and therefore its smart inclusion in your diet is imperative to avail the related health benefits. The health related benefits and the eating delight have warranted its place in morning menus in several restaurants in Khan Market and others.

Eggs are also a good storehouse of proteins which needless to say are an indispensable part of the bones, muscles, cartilages, skin and blood. Our body also uses these proteins to further build and repair the tissues as well as for making several enzymes, hormones and other chemicals found in the body. It is for this particular reason that Eggs Benedict savor on these not only for breakfast but also for the rest of the meals for the day. Here are some of the quick and delectable egg recipes:

-Shrimp and Bacon Deviled Eggs
The potato flakes provide these with the filling and then stir these in shrimp and parsley, add other spices as per your taste and finally sprinkle the bacon. You can also prepare a day ahead of any of the event you are planning to serve it. Wrap them with plastic and refrigerate.

-Simply bake it (Simple Baked Eggs)
It is a 6 ingredient recipe vouching for the swiftness when preparing this. With an elegant presentation it is a treat to an Egg Benedict and count for an excellent choice for a brunch. Break an egg into an already prepared ramekin, sprinkle these with pepper and salt covering each of it with cream and put them for baking.

-Egg Salad
The platter has a creamy texture and together with crunchy bacon, lettuce and tomato it is just pure heaven for all the foodies. You can also add lemon rind and sour cream to make it taste even better.

My Sweet Home Bar

Keen on having home bar? Well, yes it’s certainly going to be a challenging task. There’s sea difference in merely wishing to have ambience similar to the bar that you have had visited recently and having it at the home bar. Well, experience counts and this is what is instigating me to say this.

I am a Mumbai locale, and now i don’t think i need to further justify anything. This place is famous for its nightlife and so as restaurants in Bangalore adds on to the charm of this beautiful place. I worked for around three years in a private firm in Bangalore and there i did not have to think much. I was accommodated in a flat, which was given to me by the company. I had a small sweet corner, restaurant in Bangalore which was a virtual spa-center to me. Well, having least said, even till the day, i miss the sweet-own-corner.

So post leaving the job, when i came to Mumbai, it became really difficult for me to adjust. But yes, luckily i as able to give my small bar again the similar cozy touch that i was missing out on a lot. So those who are planning to set up a home bar in Mumbai, the only thing that i would personally suggest is don’t overboard vibrant shades and bling. A home bar won’t be the place wherein every other hour you’ll be going to, but yes, might be a possibility that ideal setting might keep you hooked for hours and hours. Got the difference?? Go for it! So better that you keep a check over it! Have dim lit ambience instead of going too very high with ambience and so as with shades to give that ‘perfect’ look to the place.

A Village To Die For

Walking into the village lanes sounds a tad too retarded, right?
 

Or maybe not, especially when you are loitering into the lanes of Hauz Khas Village. People who don’t know much about Hauz Khas often mistake it for some flat-footed place- the kind of place that fails to arouse any consumer activity. But, ask a person who has experienced the marvels of shopping or binging in a restaurant in Hauz Khas and you would know how terribly mistaken you probably are.
Hauz Khas is a place where once you set your foot into, you will not be able to help but admire it for the chirpiness of its restaurants. Right from the quirky decor to glitzy menus, everything is admiringly bang on. There are restaurants where you will find walls decorated with pastel sheets and paintings- paintings that have stories to tell, like in Smoke House Deli. Punctuated with weird artefacts and a jazzy ambience, restaurants in Khan Market and Hauz Khas have an illusionary touch pivoted to them. 

Smoke House Deli, Flipside Cafe, Warehouse Cafe- these are just a few of the wonders that Hauz Khas is palmed with. Breathtaking ambience littered with every element of happy peculiarity is what makes it the most visited places in New Delhi. The cosy corner of SHD revs up the appetite and demands an instantly brewed espresso; the shakes and ice creams of Warehouse Cafe lit up the excited audience.

Hauz Khas Village and Khan Market in vicinity are studded with some incredibly Jazzy restaurants, breezy enough to put you in a culinary reverie. Be it Hauz Khas or Khan Market, there is a signature twist to every restaurant that you will ever set your foot into, and that twist is everything to die for!

Into The Lanes Of Saket- Smoke House Deli

It was a regular monsoon evening in Delhi, clad with glistening trees and mushroomed with the ethereal monsoon-y fragrance. Naturally, for any typical Delhi-wallah, monsoons are synonymous with food- fried and smoked food. As a Delhite myself, I am not any different.  Spurred by a strong urge to break bread, I set off into the lanes of Saket hunting for something that could satiate my spewing hunger for food- probably a smoked burgers in Delhi or something of that like.

It was then that I sniffed something of my delight.  Huddled together in a peculiar place and bearing the look that was different to what I get to see normally, I strolled inside Smoke House Deli. Crammed in the lanes of Saket, this all quirky restaurant soothes. It was the delectable decor of the place that I almost forgot what I was there for in the first place. It took my about 10 minutes to breathe in the ambience, and honestly, even that was not enough.

A few moments later I glanced at the menu. Just a glimpse was enough to get a taste of what SHD serves- anything and everything that your taste buds might not have tripped onto before. While I was randomly looking at the menu items, one of them managed to hold my gaze- Eggs Benedict. While I had heard about them a lot of times, I couldn’t ever get the chance to gorge on them. Going by the popular opinion, I ordered a plate and started waiting in excitement for it.

The ensemble of it a few minutes later hinted that I had actually ordered something divine. The fat slices of ham, nicely toasted English Muffins clothed in Hollandaise sauce did cast a spell. The eggs melted in mouth, quite literally. The heaven- licious taste was hard to get enough of. So was the monsoon-ish touch that fuelled the craving!